The Girl at the Hanging Tree

by Mary Gray

  36

  Car doors slam, immediately waking Tansy and me. I’ve no clue how much time has passed since the last time we talked. I don’t even know if it’s been three days.

  “Who do you think it is?” I ask Tansy, yawning. “Tourists?”

  Oh, but that’s an awful lot of car doors slamming.

  Tansy pauses to listen to the soft chants curling from outside. Another language? In my mind, I can see the letters in the margins of the history books Edgar leant me. There were always symbols. Greek symbols. “The holy language,” he would say. Something inside me says that graffiti symbol on the outside of our door is also Greek.

  “Are they even real?” I ask Tansy. I mean the Klan. Do they honestly go to peoples’ homes and chant foreign languages to scare them into submission? “What do you think they want?”

  I’m right with her when we grip the bottom ledge of our plush seat.

  Tansy leans forward, then backward in a full-body wave. “All the evidence, probably.”

  “Evidence ... of WT’s death? Or Francesca’s!”

  She pushes back our chair with a clatter.

  “But we can’t give that!”

  Tearing off for the stairs, Tansy has us grab the rail and limp, step by step, up the staircase. Through one of the boarded-up windows in the hallway, an orange flame passes by, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that was a torch.

  “We can’t give them the robe, Tansy.” I clutch the rail, horrified that she’s even entertaining the idea.

  “I’m sorry, my love, but it is the only way.”

  “But it’s the only evidence we have!” I kick the wall of the stairs to get her to listen to me.

  Tansy pulls us up the stairs, higher and higher. “You saw that torch. They mean to smoke us out. No way am I lettin’ go of the estate.”

  Fear and horror ring through my limbs in a cyclone through my body. “But we can’t do it!” Against my will, she’s made sure that our feet have found the top of the staircase. “Tansy, you don’t understand. I’m not willing to turn my back on the only person who’s ever treated me with decency in Deep Creek.”

  “I’m sorry, G.” We’ve reached the closet and Tansy tugs on the brass handle. “But it’s the only way.” She tugs on the handle again, but it’s useless; the door won’t budge.

  “Did you lock it?” I ask, feeling slightly satisfied.

  “Arrrrgh!” Tansy screams. “I thought it best to keep you from revisitin’!”

  More shouts ricochet off the walls outside. Glass shatters—one of the stained-glass windows in the library probably—and Tansy’s right—the Klan’s going to smoke us out if we don’t do something—and quickly.

  But I can’t betray Francesca by turning in the one proof I have of how she died.

  “I can’t. I won’t.” I shake my head rapidly as a slight breeze has us turning. The open window proves how Dwayne first got inside. There’s a platform just outside the window. Something teases my mind ... like WT and I used to go out there to watch the stars at night. Not that I care at this point.

  Tansy backs us away from the door, and I have no idea what she’s doing until she purposely marches us across the hall, past an enormous chest and gourd-shaped canteens.

  Pausing before a wall of frontier-time pieces—a leather saddle, and a sugar cane knife—she lays our eyes on a hefty-sized tomahawk with a black and brown handle and more geometric Greek symbols on the curved blade.

  Wrenching it from the wall, Tansy marches us back to the closet, Amazon warrior-style. I hate that this is the choice she believes she gets to make.

  “No!” I try to wrench the tomahawk out of her grasp. “There has to be another way!”

  The blade cuts my inner arm with a slight sting.

  “There isn’t!” she shrieks before heaving the tomahawk and slicing it through the door with the meaty side of the blade.

  The wide end catches at an odd angle, but with an extra amount of gusto, we heave it out with our combined strength. I think about fighting her some more on this, but last thing I need is to give myself an accidental beheading.

  With about ten or so swings, we end up doing enough damage to make a hole big enough for us to climb through and we ditch the blade. I’m tempted to tuck tail and run now—but almost on impulse, I’m following her lead. Ducking past all the clothes—WT’s shirts and pants—and going along while she finds the robe. It’s still balled up on the floor in the farthest corner.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything else we can give them to buy us more time?” The lump in my throat about doubles in size. She has us grab the robe while both of us end up gagging.

  “They’ll do anythin’”—she dry heaves—“to get the existence and inner-workings of the Klan under lock n’ key.” Stepping out of the closet, Tansy has us hold out the garment like it’s covered in fleas. “You n’ I know, their worst nightmare is being discovered on the outside.”

  I trip on the fabric as we bumble toward the window. “But we should give it to the police.”

  Tansy guffaws. “You mean, like Jesse?”

  “We’ll take a picture of it, then.”

  “With all our fine digital cameras?” The chanting’s rising in a crescendo, and our pulse quickens to ramming speed. “There isn’t time!”

  Corset constricting, Tansy stomps us over to the window. We grip the lip of the window with one hand while holding the robe beneath our elbow, and I can’t believe I’m not fighting her on this. I should be fighting!

  But I hold back—because they do want to smoke us out, and Jesse would only make the robe disappear anyway.

  Heaving, we eventually lift the window open and, much faster than expected, guilt hooks me with its iron claws as we push out the screen.

  Below us on the lawn is a throng of ten or so men in white-hooded costumes I never wanted to see. They remind me of a bunch of demented Oompa-Loompas, trying on doctors coats and dunce caps for size.

  Bile rises again from my throat. How could any of them ever want to join this sick and twisted secret society?

  Tansy shoves the robe through—and the milky fabric falls to one of the holly bushes like a parachute from Be’er Shachath, or “pit of corruption”—tour guide thing.

  One of the men steps up to the bushes to retrieve the robe. Gently, he lifts it up like he’s performing a sacred ceremony. He looks like he belongs in a medieval time period video game with his idiotic, wide, white sleeves. More torches wave at us amidst the waning moonlight. One of the men lowers his torch to set fire to a bush, but a second, taller man knocks the first man’s shoulder, causing him to drop the torch to the rocky pathway.

  A deathly silence steals over the group as the tall one says something in a low tone and directs the group to leave.

  Something tells me they’ll be coming back. How are we supposed to be ready? How are we ever supposed to get justice for what happened to Francesca now?

  Turning to Tansy, I have to ask, “Is one of them WT?”

  Tansy shakes her head. “Non, mon cherie. Plus, dear one, it is time to visit the basement. You have finally proved you are ready.”

  37

  “Before I take you where we need to go,” Tansy says, “I need to show you another memory.”

  I’d rather get right to it, but no way am I turning down more information at this point. I help her take a few animated steps down the stairs, past all the metal sconces on the walls, toward the hallway.

  At the bottom, though, I cannot deny that Tansy’s stalling. She wrings our hands and clutches her necklace again, breathing louder than a howler monkey. “The second time we saw WT was at the grocery store. You already saw how we met him on the bridge?”

  I nod.

  She hobble-steps down the hall, favoring the sturdier of her bad knees. “He was buyin’ dog food at the cash register, and we didn’t know whether to duck or come right out and say that our mission to research the county records had gone ka-blooey.”

  Tansy
leans on the table, taking a breather to explain things. “We didn’t want him to dismiss us outright, so we chose a third option. Walked right past him, just barely grazin’ our arm against his. ‘William,’ we said, noddin’ formally. ‘Course, we didn’t in fact know that was his first name, but it seemed likely. If he was interested in talkin’ to us, he would correct us ... or pretend we were right. Didn’t take him long to say in his gravelly voice, ‘What did you call me?’

  “It was a question we would have asked if we were in his place, but mysteriousness, G, was on our side. We had only returned to town for Edgar’s funeral a few weeks before, and, after askin’ round town about who he was, we reckoned he wanted to get to know a pretty face.”

  Tansy knocks the table with our knuckles, having regained some of her energy. “So we walked on to the produce section—shoppin’ for pomegranates and celery.”

  “He asked us out for that night!” I remember suddenly. An image of WT awkwardly holding a grapefruit in his palm flashes like a searchlight in my mind.

  Tansy nods, shoulders tensing. “When he picked us up—”

  “He was wearing a three-piece suit, a Rolex, and—his red skinny tie!” And, yes, I can’t believe I’m remembering. But I shouldn’t be happy. He was part of the KKK.

  “We didn’t want to admit that this would be our fanciest date.” Tansy lays out another hint for me. “The most spectacular thing we’d ever done was go to a movie—”

  “And he took us to Bass Hall to see Cirque du Soleil.” Oh, I hate to admit it, but that was one heck of a date.

  Never more forlorn, Tansy suddenly pauses before her raccoon panting and studies the “ketchup” that has long dried. “You really are remembering.”

  “Tansy ..." I wish I could find the right words, but it’s hard to express exactly what I’m feeling. “Please don’t be angry with me, but what if—and I know this is crazy—but what if WT really was a nice guy?”

  She tightens our lips. Not the takeaway she wanted.

  “I know, I know. I’m probably wrong, but I have seen half a dozen memories already, and I may be remembering them wrong, but he seemed so gentle and ni—"

  “He wasn’t!” Tansy shrieks as she spins away from the paintings. Our footsteps have definitely grown louder, and Jerusha, with her fuzzy black tail, darts around the corner to avoid us in the nick of time.

  “I know the idea’s insane, but from what I can remember, he really did seem torn. I mean, he wanted to go to Palo Duro and—”

  “I’m warnin’ you, G.” Beside the Texas bluebonnet artwork, Tansy clenches our teeth. “You need to understand how evil he was, so you don’t question the choices we had to make.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “Tansy, what are you saying?”

  Running the backs of our nails along the cool surface of the mirror, she says, “Sometimes it’s worth scarin’ ourselves to protect the heart of things.”

  “Okay ... not sure what that means.”

  Tansy pats the coat rack where I left her feather boa. “Let’s think about our date, back when you thought he was such a nice guy. Do you remember what he kept in his coat packet?”

  A white swath of fabric floats to my side of our mind. “A handkerchief!”

  “And, oh, how we loved that white handkerchief.”

  I almost add how, when we listened to music in the car, WT tapped the steering wheel. And, once again, I’m reminded of his smell—that cedar smell from his truck’s dashboard’s cedar inlay.

  Lost in the moment, I find that Tansy and I both have to close our eyes. We remember how the actors were draped in bright melons of color—yellows and pinks. While WT played with the lace on my skirt, I made sure not to move, because I didn’t want him to stop all night. When we hit intermission, instead of getting up, WT leaned closer, and brushed his lips along my ear. Fire erupted along my skin, and it was all I could do not to dissolve into a puddle. At the ankle, I wound my leg around his lower leg. For the remainder of the performance, I couldn’t concentrate.

  When the play was over, he ran his finger down one of my ringlets, a warm geyser shimmering through my entire body.

  “And, oooh, did WT know how to bake,” Tansy says. “He made homemade glazed donuts and tiramisu and the most killer soufflés.”

  “He gave us a tour of the house!” I hold out the crook of our arm, reenacting the way he led me down the hallway.

  “Showed us the parlor,” Tansy agrees. “Not a pillow or carpet fiber outta place.”

  “It was the library”—I spin for the French doors—"that we could tell was his domain.”

  “The books were helter-skelter, an’ a dozen or so papers were heaped upon his fancy desk o’ mahogany.”

  “But what we really liked was the pie safe.” We pause before a free-standing cabinet I hadn’t noticed lately. Wrenching open the honey doors, I try to remember the pies I once placed in here to keep safe. WT didn’t even know what it was ... but I explained that it was just a cabinet that kept the pies safe from impatient children and flies.

  “Show me the grounds?” Tansy and I say together, recalling how we asked WT to show us the main floor of the house, but he didn’t dare take me upstairs. I am traditional in relationships, he said, and I couldn’t believe it, because so was I. And we kissed, our lips turning to butter, his and my arms becoming a blur of muscle and heat.

  “Tansy.” I have to pry open our mouth to force her to talk to me. “I need you to tell me the truth. Is WT dead or alive?”

  She rests one of our free hands on the shelf in the pie safe. “I don’t think you really wanna know, G.”

  “If WT is alive, where would he go? What makes you assume that he went away?”

  “Maybe the Klan killed him,” Tansy taunts me. “Maybe he didn’t live up to their expectations, and they finished him off for good. Decided to plant it on you n’ me.”

  I have us stop before the basement door, hesitating. “What if he’s not actually a Klan member? What if someone stashed the robe in our closet to make him look guilty?”

  The little hairs on the back of our neck stand on end as Tansy warns, “Or maybe you need to stop flappin’ that yapper of yours and start listenin’ to me!”

  “Sorry ... sorry.” I lick our lips, trying to be patient, but not exactly being successful. “Okay.” I square our shoulders, doing my best not to feel weighed down by her restrictive corset and jewelry. “I’m ready.”

  38

  Staring at the basement door, I get the feeling that there’s something on the other side I really don’t want to see.

  I don’t want to go down there.

  I’ve never been down there.

  Not while I’ve been awake.

  “This way,” Tansy says while reaching for the doorknob with bumps and grooves and an asymmetrical design.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to just tell me what’s down there?” I don’t want to be in any windowless rooms. Claustrophobia’s a real thing. “What about the avalanche?”

  Annoyed, Tansy grits our teeth. “I’m here to protect you. And while the avalanche is always a risk, I don’t see how it can happen if we face the truth of what happened together. This is the final piece.”

  An unexpected bout of paranoia shoots up the back of my neck and throbs at the base of my skull. “Why did you just stop to show me those beautiful memories?”

  “Because”—Tansy strangles the doorknob with a surprising strength—“the sweeter the love, the more acutely the betrayal stings.”

  Lead burrows and solidifies in our veins. I don’t want to keep trudging down more steps. What if her plan is to lead me down there to lock me up? Or ... she’s got WT’s head in a freezer. A person can’t paint violent images without thinking about committing the crimes at some point.

  Golf clubs. She’s taking me downstairs to show me golf clubs. Old tennis rackets. Steven F. Austin’s mummified remains.

  As if she’s the queen of pied pipers, Tansy leads me down the stairway.
Not only is it blacker than space, but it smells of rot and mildew; quite literally like something died.

  We’re about three-quarters of the way down when the mother of Charlie horses cramps up my foot. I tense to lift it up while Tansy says, “A little further, G.” She pries our foot from the ledge of the next step and leads us deeper and deeper into the cave.

  What if, for some outlandish reason, she’s got Grammy down here, hooked up to an IV?

  We take three more steps before Tansy slaps our hands together. “Good! Good, good, good. Are you ready for this? ‘twill change your life!”

  My throat’s closing up. Dizzy spots are floating in front of my eyes. “Tansy ..." My gut twists into the mother of all grapevines.

  I can’t look. Cannot breathe. Honestly, it feels like I’ve been bound and gagged and thrown into a dryer. Can’t get out, even if I tried.

  Tansy raises our arm and tugs an overhead chain. I don’t want to be in here. Don’t want to see. With a shaky arm, I raise my hand to shield our eyes.

  You know, I don’t know what I expected. Tennis rackets really would have been the best thing. But it seems we’re in a room packed full of antlers from deer heads—a labyrinth of bone chutes, crisscrossing in a corn maze. About thirty.

  Actually, they kind of remind me of Snow White—how the animals were drawn to her. Maybe another version of Snow White needs to be based on Tansy and me.

  While Tansy leads us around the first set of antlers, we pass a huge stuffed beaver with cinnamon fur, along with his kiddies.

  We stumble on something in the dark toward a waist-high black mound, though I don’t know what it is. Our eyes are still adjusting.

  “You’ll have to excuse the odor.” Tansy has us sniffing. It smells like a locker room—gym socks, football pads, cleats. “To preserve things the way we needed, I’ve had to experiment with biology.”

  Before I know it, we’re staring face-to-face with a large, horizontal planter box filled with a human shape. It’s human, but not. A huge pile of sludge with a head lies connected to eroded shoulders and ribs, all the fat and muscle missing. The person’s form is tar-dipped—like plastic wrap has been stretched over a skeletal frame.